Xteam 01 - Practice Game

[killercane]

I have not had a chance to look at the save yet (just got back in town from 6th wedding in 3 months!), but ideally the most important thing is to improve our science rate substantially. Since we start w/ wheel and researched fishing, pottery->writing->library (academy) should be short term goals. Writing is needed if we want to pursue Feudalism->Guilds.

Great Lighthouse isnt so great with only one trade route with Ottomans. A boat to find someone and then Alphabet is what I would do, rather than research a lot of miscellaneous techs. The only consideration is keeping the AI backward.

And if we can skip turn with our warrior around Ottoman territory, the AI in BTS likes to road tiles so he may be able to grab the worker at some point.

 

[DJMGator13]

I played 12 turns, we learned Sailing and have a few turns on Pottery. I stopped here so we could decide where the settler goes. We have not met anyone else, but the Ottoman scout just emerge from the fog. There's a chance someone could be there, but unlikely based on a few of the WB distribution I saw on test maps.


T26 -2960 BC -switch to clam / change research to sailing / start chop

T27 -2920 BC

T28 -2880 BC - chop completes (20 hammers)

T29 -2840 BC - warrior defends against a lion / Const grows to Size 2 / workboat completed / start mining pHill

T30 -2800 BC - 2nd warrior completed = start settler / mm to gold hill instead of the crabs since we're Imper (50% bonus applies to hammers only) settler still in 12, but Sailing in 5 vrs 8 / send the new warrior to kill the wolf by the copper

T31 -2760 BC

T32 -2720 BC - pHill mined

T33 -2680 BC - wolf by copper is dead, area is mostly tundra (there's another GH we may want to remove)

T34 -2640 BC - start a new chop

IBT- southern warrior defends against another lion / we learn Sailing = set to Pottery in 5 (for some commerce for copper city)

T35 -2600 BC -Trying to max our chop, so I switch off the clams to the mined pHill dropping the settler from 7 to 5 turns which leaves us at -2 fpt

T36 -2560 BC - chop completes (20 hammers) / promo'd southern warrior to combat 1 there's a panther about to attack him

T37 -2520 BC - southern warrior defends against the panther, finds Otto's scout / Const settler complete start a lighthouse / mm back for food (all units are unmoved)

Picture of Copper area

 

[DJMGator13]

I still like the spot NW of the cows for the city but we'd need an expansion to pickup the copper. We could share the cow and add another crab, plus keep the grass hill in play for mining. It also allows us to grab the 2 forest on the next island.

 

[ShannonCT]

Best locations for settler seem to be NW of cows or NE of gold. I like the latter. Constantinople has enough food to become a cottage city even without the seafood. A city NE of the gold will have 14 surplus food, supporting up to 7 specialists.

Suggest Constantinople build a couple more workboats before lighthouse (probably granary before lighthouse too) -- 1 for exploration and 1 for clams if we settle NE of gold.

Warrior 1 could go explore fog while warrior 2 could go back to stalk the Ottomans for a worker.

After Pottery, I guess we want Writing to start on a library.

 

[DJMGator13]

Best locations for settler seem to be NW of cows or NE of gold. I like the latter. Constantinople has enough food to become a cottage city even without the seafood. A city NE of the gold will have 14 surplus food, supporting up to 7 specialists.

Suggest Constantinople build a couple more workboats before lighthouse (probably granary before lighthouse too) -- 1 for exploration and 1 for clams if we settle NE of gold.

Warrior 1 could go explore fog while warrior 2 could go back to stalk the Ottomans for a worker.

After Pottery, I guess we want Writing to start on a library.

I selected the lighthouse more as a placeholder. Personally I'd go with the w/b to expose more of the map and find out who our other neighbors are.

The site NE of the gold sounds good but would not grab the copper. We'll need a few axes just for the barbs even if we aren't planning to rush the Ottoman. Are you thinking we should save the copper for a 3rd city and get a specialist city going first?

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

A tip I picked up somewhere: you can check the espionage ratio with Ottomans to see if they have met any other AI's yet. The ratio will be 1:1 if they haven't met anyone else.

 

[ShannonCT]

The site NE of the gold sounds good but would not grab the copper. We'll need a few axes just for the barbs even if we aren't planning to rush the Ottoman. Are you thinking we should save the copper for a 3rd city and get a specialist city going first?

Warriors should be adequate for fog busting and barb defense right now. If we go for copper now, it should be for rushing Ottomans. But if we think the advantage of the rush is not worth the cost, I think we should go for max tech rate.

A tip I picked up somewhere: you can check the espionage ratio with Ottomans to see if they have met any other AI's yet. The ratio will be 1:1 if they haven't met anyone else.

I'm not sure that really works. The espionage ratio with an AI depends on the total number of espionage points accumulated over the game, not on the number of those points applied to that AI. Our ratio with Ottomans is 1.03 right now, because we settled two turns after they, and because they have used the espionage slider a bit (check the espionage graph).

 

[leif erikson]

If we are not going to do an early rush, then I agree that we can settle one NE of the gold, a nice commerce spot with great potential for Great People.

We may want to build a Warrior and send him up to the hill next to the Copper to keep Barbs from spawning and backdooring us?

Pottery => Writing sounds like the best choice at the moment. Should be able to pop-rush a Library in the new city with all that food.

A Work Boat for the Clams near the new city plus one for scouting sounds like our most productive builds atm. Getting a couple of Work Boats out scouting will make a rush to Alphabet more worthwhile as we need more contacts.

 

[rrau]

One thing to consider in city placement in BTS.....Forts can let a ship pass and can allow some passages to open up that weren't possible in earlier versions....Thinking ahead to the southern cow city placement...maybe between cow and rice and then we can use one tile for a fort and sea passage for ships? Maybe something similar near dyes?

 

[ShannonCT]

One thing to consider in city placement in BTS.....Forts can let a ship pass and can allow some passages to open up that weren't possible in earlier versions....Thinking ahead to the southern cow city placement...maybe between cow and rice and then we can use one tile for a fort and sea passage for ships? Maybe something similar near dyes?

We can also use the 1 tile lake as a canal. Build forts on each side of the lake and we'll have our own little Bosporous and Dardanelles.

So Gator, are you going to finish your set?

 

[leif erikson]

How are you doing Gator?

 

[DJMGator13]

So Gator, are you going to finish your set?

Work had me snowed yesterday. I can play some more now.

 

[DJMGator13]

I played thru the start of turn 48 when we learned Writing.

T37 - 2520 BC - change to w/b
T38 - 2480 BC - start chop
T39 - 2440 BC - found Thessalonica (ne of gold) start w/b / sci to 0% for 1 turn since we went to -2gpt, now at +16 gpt
T40 - 2400 BC - sci back to 100% / chop completes
T41 - 2360 BC - Const size 3, mm to include gold mine
T42 - 2320 BC - Pottery is learned, et to Writing / Const w/b => w/b
T43 - 2280 BC - southern warrior reaches Sully's border and finds the sugar already roaded, sorry about that / worker starts a cottage that can be shared
T44 - 2240 BC - Judaism founded somewhere / make a new clam net by Thess (growth in 3)
T45 - 2200 BC -
T46 - 2160 BC - cottage completes
T47 - 2120 BC - Const size 4, Thess size 2 / mm both cities
T48 - 2080 BC - Learn Writing, set to Alpha / Const w/b => library / (all units unmoved)

Hand-off notes
1) We may want a warrior before the library in Const because of happiness.
2) The library build can be sped up by grabbing both the plain hill and the gold for Const
3) I just moved the worker to the gold hill so we can road it for happy bonus
4) Const will cultural expand in 4 turns and grab the rice
5) Thess will complete the w/b in 5, then we may want a monument for culture or should we go straight for a library there?
6) We need to set sci to 0% for 2 turns to bank the 30 gold it will take to learn Alpha (15 turns x -2gpt)

 

[Jimmy Thunder]

6) We need to set sci to 0% for 2 turns to bank the 30 gold it will take to learn Alpha (15 turns x -2gpt)

I'm not sure on this, but I think in BTS you can earn beakers in decimals, so there is no longer any advantage of binary research (except the benefit of saving 100% research to a period where we have a library, but this is pretty minor).

 

[leif erikson]

Looking good Gator!

Hand-off notes
1) We may want a warrior before the library in Const because of happiness.
2) The library build can be sped up by grabbing both the plain hill and the gold for Const
3) I just moved the worker to the gold hill so we can road it for happy bonus
4) Const will cultural expand in 4 turns and grab the rice
5) Thess will complete the w/b in 5, then we may want a monument for culture or should we go straight for a library there?
6) We need to set sci to 0% for 2 turns to bank the 30 gold it will take to learn Alpha (15 turns x -2gpt)

1) The Worker can road in 2 turns, so he will complete the road to Constantinople before it grows. So the Library could go first.

2) Having Constan use both hills will delay the Work Boat 10 turns in Thessalonica. We need Thess to grow so we can pop-rush a Library there, although the Work Boat has no purpose without a cultural expansion. Unless we are planning to use both Work Boats as Scouts? We could switch Thess to Library now?

3) Yes, need to build roads.

6) see 2 above.

Do we want to get another city build down by the Rice and Cows before Sully does so? If so, located 1-tile North of Cows? We can build forts later east and NW as rrau suggests?

Worker roads to Const and then Cottages the FP tile?

If we Scout with only one Work Boat, then it seems that west would be best but can we get around our island to the north? Or shall we go east and south?

I'm not sure on this, but I think in BTS you can earn beakers in decimals, so there is no longer any advantage of binary research (except the benefit of saving 100% research to a period where we have a library, but this is pretty minor).

Yes, looking at the city screen, the number are in decimals. Interesting that we are at -2 gpt at 100% research and that at 90%, we are at 0 gpt but the city screen shows that we are making 1.5 gpt. Must round up for negative gpt calculations? Hope it does so for positive ones too...

 

[killercane]

This is 3.17 right? I borked the dual install and it will take a few days to get it running.

Is our VC space? If so we need a game plan to that effect, like 4 cities and an academy by 1000 BC.

We dont need Alphabet if we only have Suleiman to trade with. A workboat might change that, ie meet people. Alphabet opens up spies in BTS, but their usefulness is limited in this situation.

We can build a warrior in Thessalonica to put in the capital for happiness or bring a warrior back from somewhere if done exploring.

If Thess needs border expansion, we can have it build a settler. If the plan is to Oracle/research CoL, it will get a free expansion.

 

[leif erikson]

This is 3.17 right? I borked the dual install and it will take a few days to get it running.

No, it is 3.13 because we wanted to plauy with the HoF mod and there isn't one for 3.17 atm. We also wanted to stay compatible with BOTM, in case 3.17 wasn't ready yet, so we wouldn't have to worry about dual installs.

Is our VC space? If so we need a game plan to that effect, like 4 cities and an academy by 1000 BC.

We decided to practice Domination, so that is our goal atm.

We dont need Alphabet if we only have Suleiman to trade with. A workboat might change that, ie meet people. Alphabet opens up spies in BTS, but their usefulness is limited in this situation.

This is why I asked if we wanted to send Work Boats in both directions, so we can find other civs.

We can build a warrior in Thessalonica to put in the capital for happiness or bring a warrior back from somewhere if done exploring.

This would work!

If Thess needs border expansion, we can have it build a settler. If the plan is to Oracle/research CoL, it will get a free expansion.

Could you please explain this a bit more. I am lost... Well, nothing too unexpected.

 

[killercane]

Ok I looked at the save. What about:

Library in capital using FP, 2 hills, seafood and settler in Thess using two seafood (15 turns). Library completes in 10, we can then get the scientists. We dont need a warrior. Or if we want to keep working the gold, we dump hammers in library at Thess, and then at size 3 build the settler so that when we take the 2 scientists @ capital, Thess can work the gold to finish the settler and research stays up.

Worker doesnt road gold but goes to cottage FP by capital. We dont need the happiness yet.

Thess can get border expansion via religion or the aforementioned library. I hate monuments.

If the goal is domination, we need production. There is a cow-rice spot south that picks up three hills, that is just about the best option. There is also a banana spot SE in the jungle that could be productive.

 

[leif erikson]

Library in capital using FP, 2 hills, seafood and settler in Thess using two seafood (15 turns). Library completes in 10, we can then get the scientists. We dont need a warrior. Or if we want to keep working the gold, we dump hammers in library at Thess, and then at size 3 build the settler so that when we take the 2 scientists @ capital, Thess can work the gold to finish the settler and research stays up.

OK, this works for me. This slows the growth of Const. and speeds Thess. A Settler in Thess will require 15 turns, I think we should switch to Settler now.

Worker doesn't road gold but goes to cottage FP by capital. We dont need the happiness yet.

Yes, this is a good move. Then we road.

Thess can get border expansion via religion or the aforementioned library. I hate monuments.

No religions around atm. After Settler, Library for expansion.

If the goal is domination, we need production. There is a cow-rice spot south that picks up three hills, that is just about the best option. There is also a banana spot SE in the jungle that could be productive.

Yes, please see the screenie attached. We can 4 Hills and enough food to work them with a little happiness.

Should we sign an Open Borders pact with Sully, recon his area? Or are we still looking to steal a worker?

Work Boat scouts which direction?

We will need additional Workers soon. With three cities, we need at least one more. Also, a Galley to ferry a worker across the strait to mine the plains hill for Thess' expansion.

 

[DJMGator13]

Thess can get border expansion via religion or the aforementioned library. I hate monuments.

If the goal is domination, we need production. There is a cow-rice spot south that picks up three hills, that is just about the best option. There is also a banana spot SE in the jungle that could be productive.

I hate monuments also, way too little culture and they obsolete too fast.

Goal is domination but we'll need astronomy, so we need to push the research rate.